1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a zoom lens and, more particularly, to a zoom lens having refractive and diffractive optical elements.
2. Description of Related Art
Zoom lenses have been utilized in the art for quite some time. The zoom lenses at the telephoto mode magnify an object being viewed to provide the viewer with a view of a distant scene. On the other hand, the zoom lenses at the wide field of view modes cover very wide angle scenes. Generally, the zoom lenses are formed from refractive, reflective or a combination of refractive and reflective elements. The packaging of the zoom lens generally dictates the type of optical elements which are present.
Generally, in an all refractive zoom lens assembly, the assembly includes several lens groups. Turning to FIG. 1, a first lens group 1, which is called a focusing group, is used to relay an outside scene onto an intermediate plane. The second lens group 2, which is known as a variator, is generally a virtual relay and is used to vary the magnification of the zoom lens. Ordinarily, it is regarded as the "engine" of the zoom lens. The variator is moved back and forth to change the effective focal length of the system. A third lens group 3 is used to compensate for the focus shift introduced during the zoom process and is generally referred to as a compensator. For many zoom lens systems, the wavefront emerging from the compensator is either collimated or near collimated. The fourth lens group 4 is referred to as a prime group. The fourth lens group 4 is used to focus the wavefront emerging from the compensator onto a viewing plane. Also, some zoom lenses combine the compensator 3 and prime group 4 as a single unit.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,784,284, issued Jan. 8, 1974 to Nakamura, illustrates a zoom lens like that described above. While providing a zoom lens having a varying focal length, the zoom lens has several disadvantages. One disadvantage is that it is an all-refractive lens and is heavy and bulky. The lens has an effective focal length range from 7.5 mm to 56.3 mm. Also, the main limitation dominating the complexity of this type of lens system is chromatic aberration correction. At the long effective focal length zoom positions, axial chromatic aberration and spherochromatism are the limiting aberrations. At the short effective focal length zoom positions, lateral chromatic aberration is the dominating aberration. In order to stabilize the chromatic aberration during zoom, each group requires flint-glass lenses to either partially or fully correct the chromatic aberration. The chromatic aberration correction of the focusing group and the variator is particularly critical. Unfortunately, each group can evolve to a form which is bulky and complicated and this takes away from the available zoom space. Therefore, the zoom range is seriously jeopardized. In addition, some residual third and higher order aberrations are created as a result of steeper lens curvatures.